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What I Saw In Minneapolis

A field report from a week of anti-ICE protests.

   DailyWire.com
What I Saw In Minneapolis
The Daily Wire

Just hours after Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent she attempted to hit with her car, protesters began descending on Minneapolis.

By midnight on the day of Good’s death, protesters had blocked off both sides of the street with torn-off doors, trash cans, wooden crates, and signs adorned with quotes from Assata Shakur, a woman the FBI put on its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list.

For five days in sub-freezing temperatures, they marched and chanted that Good didn’t deserve to die. Many said ICE agents deserved to die.

The shooting occurred at 34th Street and Portland Avenue, where roughly 30 candles were set in the snow to mark the vigil site.

The Daily Wire spoke with mostly Minneapolis residents that night, but by Thursday morning, the crowds began to include people from across the country. Just before 7:00 a.m., about 2,000 protesters lined up at the St. Paul ICE Field Office. While the crowd from the previous night seemed solemn, this crowd carried intense anger.

“I started yelling at them, you know, just calling them names and the basic stuff.”

What did the basic stuff mean? The protesters answered soon enough.

“Go kill yourself,” one shouted.

“You f*cking traitorous scum,” yelled another.

From 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., protesters hurled insults at ICE officers as their vehicles arrived at the facility. When demonstrators blocked the roadway, officers responded by sending tear gas and pepper balls at the crowd’s feet.

By 9:00 a.m., the crowd dispersed from the ICE field office. On the way out, a woman wearing an AFL-CIO vest quipped, “We hit our goal time.”

One woman told The Daily Wire that it felt wrong for her to be at Good’s memorial because she’s a white woman with a lot of privilege. “I feel like white tears are not always helpful or necessary,” she said.

At one point, The Daily Wire team swung by a local McDonald’s. On the front door was a sign that read “No ICE Access In This Business.”

After The Daily Wire contacted McDonald’s corporate office, the company noted that it was “in touch with the owner/operator of this franchised restaurant and have confirmed that this flyer was posted without approval and has since been taken down.”

Later that evening, The Daily Wire verified that the sign was gone.

That night marked the first of two major evening protests. Despite sleet and snow, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people gathered to protest ICE and mourn Good. Protesters sprayed graffiti on buildings and disrupted traffic, prompting several nearby businesses to close their doors.

While Thursday was the largest protest up to that point, Friday night would greatly surpass it.

Friday followed the same pattern: morning protests, visit to the shooting site, and plans for nighttime demonstrations. Protesters claimed they had “received word” that ICE agents were staying at the Canopy Hotel. By 7:00 p.m., streets were blocked, and demonstrators swarmed the area with whistles, musical instruments, and noise-making devices intended to disrupt the officers’ stay.

One sign read, “We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.” The sign appeared to reference the 2020 Minneapolis protests following George Floyd’s death, when large parts of the city were damaged.

During Friday’s protest, police and sheriff patrol cars were swarmed, and streets were blocked for roughly seven hours, from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The night ended with multiple arrests as protesters were handcuffed and taken into custody.

On Saturday morning, The Daily Wire made one last stop. The team returned to the ICE Field Office where Representative Ilhan Omar spoke to protesters. “We’re going to show all of them the door out,” she said to the crowd. “We are going to make sure that these people pay for what they have done to us.”

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